The heralded golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. It’s an idealistic principal, but bear with me for a minute, as I explain how this age old proverb applies to you and your small business…

Good, loyal customers are the single best way to grow your business for two reasons. Number 1: a happy customer keeps coming back. Number 2: a happy customer tells all their friends… and their sister, and their mom, and their boss and even their sweet aunt Mildred. Can you say free publicity? Most businesses get this, and the good ones embrace it. Case in point, you want your customers to love you. The more customers that love you, the more cool points your business gets.

Now, let’s bring this thing full circle. You, as a business owner, run promotions, right? It’s the best way to get new faces in the door and also a great way to reward awesome loyal customers. But, for some unbeknownst reason, customers who purchase promotions, often times get sub-par customer service. It makes sense, right? You pay less, you get less…. NOT!

Customers who purchase promotions are often the best people to turn into evangelists for your business. The promotion lends itself nicely to a test trail for new customers, in which case you should be doing everything in your power to wow those customers and turn them into loyalists! If you’re using a promotion to reward your existing loyalists, then give them the all-star treatment they’ve earned. They earned it when they picked you over the salon down the street…and kept coming back. They earned it when they bought their parents a gift certificate to your restaurant for their 50th anniversary. They earned it when they were in last week and left your best employee a 30% gratuity. You want your customers to love you, so show them some love!

We get it- promotions can sometime attract low quality customers and deal chasers, who don’t care about your business, and that sucks. But at the end of the day, it does pay off to pamper your customers, regardless of whether their redeeming a promotion or paying full retail. The golden rule is thus, treat your customers- all your customers- like gold and you shall inherit the riches of the earth.